Finn and Marty
by Bamimilyt6
Summary: A young Martin washes up on the Land of Ooo about sixteen years in the future. He becomes overwhelmed with all the mutations he sees, but even then, nothing is more shocking than the news that his son is on the island. It turns out, there's a lot of explaining to do.
1. Chapter 1: The Arrival

**Chapter One  
The Arrival**

 _I heard that you loved me, but only for two weeks  
_ _To be hopeless or not to be, I'm weak with indecision_

 _Could we begin again on a terrible date?  
It would be greatly appreciated by me_

 _I'll wear my normal shoes this time  
Then maybe you'd like me better in the sunlight_

 _If I built a raft, will you stay with me then,  
And fall in love all over again?_

* * *

Martin shouted in pain as the waters roughly threw him onto the shoreline. Luckily, the (mostly) fine and wet shingle somewhat cushioned his fall, so he easily concluded that none of his bones were broken. Though, there would definitely be some bruises… He coughed up some salt water he had involuntarily swallowed in the rough ocean. Weakly, he crawled onto shore before the crashing waves could pull him back under.

Once he knew he was well on land, he went completely limp on the hot sand. Yes, he was fully aware of all the sand sticking to his wet skin and clothes, but at that moment, he didn't care. He didn't question how he came to land so quickly, or where he even was. This was the first time in hours he could properly think (despite a massive headache and a more-than-likely concussion), and there was only one thing on his mind.

 _Finn… Finn! My son! Oh, God... What happened to him?! Did he just float off in the other direction? He couldn't have gone far, surely! He's got to be somewhere on this island!_

He sighed shakily, forcing his aching body into a sitting position. He knew he was telling himself lies. Of course, just when everything seemed like it was going to be fine, he lost his son at sea and unintentionally abandoned his wife! His stare locked onto the sand beneath him.

His wife… _Minnie…_ Was she safe? Was she alright? He couldn't believe he left her, that he allowed himself to get in this situation. …What would she think of him now? He held onto a vague hope that she would understand, but all the pieces just fell in place so perfectly against him.

" _So what are you, a con artist or something?"_

" _Yeah, you make it sound so glamorous."_

" _How about me? How would you con me?"_

" _I wouldn't con you. I wanna have dinner with you!"_

" _Okay, but if you had to, how would you do it?"_

" _Um, okay, you like helping people, right? So I'd get you to feel sorry for me. I'd act real pitiful."_

He ran his hand through his tangled, wet hair. What if she thought it was all just a trick, that he, Martin Mertens, was the ultimate con artist, a Hider? The realization hit him like a punch in the gut, dread quickly falling over him.

 _Oh, you've done it this time, Mertens…_

Martin never cried. He clung onto the stupid ideology that it made him look weak, but at that moment, he felt completely vulnerable. He _was_ weak. He lost everything. His son wouldn't remember his parents and would grow up as an orphan. His wife most likely thought he was tricking her the entire time to try and leave the island (with their son, no less!). Now, he was washed up on some random remote island with nothing, save for the constant reminder that all of this was his fault.

He tried to stop himself from shaking in a vain attempt to hold back tears. It didn't work. The trauma of the past few hours caught up with him fast. He placed his head in his hand, tears starting to fall down his sand-covered cheeks. It wasn't long until it turned into a long, silent sob.

 _Everything he ever cared about was gone. What else was he supposed to do?_

 _Pull yourself together, man,_ he told himself after what felt like hours of sitting in hopeless self-blame and itchy sand. The sun was peeking from the horizon line, slowing rising into the ever approaching daytime. He found himself giving a low chuckle in spite of himself. How did his life change so drastically over the course of one night?

He stood up, yelping in surprise at the amount of sand that came with him. Ignoring the spottiness in his vision, he dusted as much sand off himself as possible, though most of it stuck to his wet clothes. He sighed, taking off his drenched sweatshirt and tying it around his waist.

Martin looked around at his surroundings, finally able to see them properly thanks to the new sunlight and his cleared eyesight. A few paces in front of him, the sand was replaced by lush green grass. There were mountains of sorts in the distance, along with a lake more to the right. An orchard of some sort was just close enough for him to make out, and even beyond that he could see… were those candy canes sticking out of the ground?

He shook his head. He had to have brain damage of some sort; he was seeing things, surely. The Guardian did take quite a beating on him, huh?

He took in a sharp breath, knowing he had to stop that train of thought immediately. He couldn't think about those events or Minnie and Finn. Not now, not while he was in such a sorry state both physically and emotionally. He knew it would only make his mental situation much worse, not to mention that he still felt very weak and dizzy. Maybe there was some hospital near that orchard?

He could only hope as he began to walk forward.

* * *

Martin made most of the journey with his head down and his hands in his pockets.

At first, looking around at the scenery seemed like a great way to distract himself from all of his existing problems, but he quickly figured out even his current issues ruined something as simple as that. In the lake, he saw what looked to be some mythical water sprites from a children's book he'd read to Finn, and he could've sworn he saw a pig and an elephant eating pie in that house near the orchard. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. He had to be hallucinating. Thus, in order to try and control it, he just stared at the ground. At least that just stayed green the entire time and didn't grow a face.

He didn't know when he stopped, though if he had to guess it was probably around noon, maybe a little before then. Nevertheless, he decided to take refuge under one of the apple trees on the outer edge of the orchard. He used a considerable amount of strength to shake down a few apples, but it was worth it, because they were probably the best apples he had ever tasted.

He leaned his head against the tree, looking out into the distance. Near a multitude of apple trees were tall, thin trees with pink leaves. Martin furrowed his brow. Were they apple trees that hadn't blossomed yet? If so, then how come these apple trees had fully blossomed? Maybe they weren't apple trees, then. They did look more like pine trees, anyways.

Martin gave a small chuckle. Oh, the things he'd do to distract himself. He supposed it was just in his nature, something akin to how no matter what he'd always find some way to get a new gadget that he wanted no matter what, and he sure was a master at it. It was determination at its finest. Conning people just seemed so easy. He was surprised no one on the island saw through his tricks, save for that old widow and her damn body guards that got him into this mess.

 _Bad train of thought, Mertens. Don't think about it. It'll only make things worse. Just don't think about it._

With that in mind, Martin decided it was time to leave, taking a few more apples and shoving them into the pockets of the sweatshirt still tied around his waist.

He started towards the oddly pink pine trees, only to stop after a few paces. He caught a glimpse of something he was envisioning from earlier, two candy canes sticking up from the ground, looking almost natural. Was that how hallucinations worked? He wasn't entirely sure, leaving him to wonder if what he was actually seeing was real.

Oh, how he wished Minnie was with him. That brilliant woman could probably explain what was happening to him in a heartbeat.

 _Gotta keep goin'. Don't think about it. Just gotta keep on goin'._

Martin shook it off, taking small strides towards the odd trees and the ground candy canes. The closer he got, the more yellow grass (could he even call it that?) and orange pavement (again, a loose term) started to replace the normal forest ground. Everything just looked so much… gummier, like some artificial candy. _Definitely still hallucinating. I gotta be._

He turned left and almost instantly regretted the action. A beautiful light pink arc marked the entrance to a brightly colored kingdom, complete with a chocolate bridge gracing over a sparkling carmel river. Some strange creatures that looked like banana popsicles guarded the pretzel gate. Not only that, but there were so many other strange creatures that looked like other sweet foods milling about on the other side!

…Was his subconscious trying to tell him something?

He started to feel extremely lightheaded.

Unfortunately, just when he was about to run off, one of the guards noticed him and waved at him warmly. "Hello, sir! What brings you to the Candy Kingdom?" the banana creature said in an odd voice Martin had never heard before.

In response, Martin just simply stared. There was no way his mind could fathom this, right? Not out of thin air? That wasn't how hallucinations worked! That couldn't be how hallucinations worked! He continued to stare as he considered the possibility… Was every strange thing he already encountered actually real? Maybe the dizziness was getting to him. He couldn't exactly think straight. In fact, his lightheadedness just seemed to be growing.

And just like that, he fainted.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Just a note - this takes place before the Islands Miniseries, and after Reboot. Thank you for reading! There's more to come! :)**

 **~Emily Believes xoxo**


	2. Chapter 2: Special Remedies

**Chapter Two**  
 **Special Remedies**

 _His heart was beating impossibly fast; he wasn't even entirely certain that he had a pulse. The image of the old widow and her henchmen replaced the darkness in his vision, haunting him with horrible memories he would rather forget. Mounted on a tiger, standing on the broken glass of the window… She had a lot of nerve breaking into his house, when his child was there, no less! Even so, despite everything in his past, he was so sure he had everything under control…_

Damn fool.

 _The stripes on the tiger quickly morphed into the harsh ocean waves of that night. He held tight onto Finn as they coursed through the violent waters. Of course, Finn didn't take kindly to this unforgiving environment and was crying loudly. He tried to hush the child, but nothing would work. He didn't exactly blame the baby; he was scared too. His heart was still pounding._

 _A large arm chopped the water beside them, splashing them further and further away from the island. Clutching Finn close, he looked up to see a monstrous machine that looked almost murderous._

 _The Guardian._

 _His eyes immediately widened. "No! I'm not trying to leave!" he shouted despairingly, but the machinery could not compute. It could only comprehend that they were beyond the boundaries of the island waters; thus, they had to be Hiders. They had to be stopped._

 _Before he knew it, Martin found himself submerged in the ocean. He struggled to stay above water as the waves continuously crashed on top of him. He so desperately tried to swim back to the raft, back to his son, but he couldn't. The waves were too strong. Soon enough, he became buried under the water, ever so slowly going under…_

" _I'm so sorry… I'm so, so sorry Finn…"_

 _The unheard apology echoed in his head as everything seemed to fade._

Martin's senses started to return as he regained consciousness. The feel of a blanket and pillow, the scent of hospital cleaning materials… Almost immediately he noticed that he could indeed breathe and was not drowning. In fact, he was completely dry, and not in his normal clothes.

Though, his head was also throbbing like crazy. It wasn't enough to impede his comprehension by much, but he winced at the immense pain as soon as he felt it. Maybe if he just laid there and pretended to be still be asleep…?

"Oh! Princess, the human has woken up," said the voice of what he assumed to be a nurse or doctor of sorts.

 _Drat_.

"Thank you, Dr. Ice Cream," replied a kind yet structured voice, the princess. What kind of place still had princesses and princes? Or was that just a nickname? Did it even matter? She was probably just another doctor… along with the strangely named "Dr. Ice Cream."

As he heard footsteps coming in his direction, Martin simply stayed still in an attempt to execute his original plan. "Sir, I'd like to ask you a few questions. You don't have to sit up or even open your eyes. I just ask that you answer. Alright?" said the princess. Martin remained silent and didn't move an inch. "I know you're awake. Your brain is as alert as it can be with the amount of head injuries you have," she added, a hint of annoyance in her tone. Martin furrowed his brow instinctively. Due to his throbbing headache, he hardly even noticed wires that were attached all over his head.

"Well, it was worth a shot," he said, cautiously turning on his back as to not pull the wires that he now knew were present. Weakly, he pushed himself into a sitting position. He wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting when he actually opened his eyes, but he knew it only added to his preexisting headache.

His eyes first fell upon a hospital bed directly across from his own. With his blurry vision, he almost mistook the bed to be normal, but as his eyesight cleared he saw that wasn't really the case. While the full bed mattress and blue sheets themselves looked normal, the candy cane frame gave everything away. The walls were a mustard brown color, which strikingly contrasted the light colored checkered tiles that covered the ground. What startled him the most, however, was the other person in the room.

The person – the princess – sat elegantly on a stool at the end of Martin's bed. It was only the two of them. He knew that she had to be one of those candy people he saw before despite looking much more humanoid than the others, as her skin was a pale pink and her tied back magenta hair looked like actual bubblegum. She had on a lab coat of sorts, holding a clipboard; it made her look very professional.

Once the princess saw that he was at least somewhat acclimatized to the new environment, she decided to get started. "What's your name?" she asked, readying her pen to write.

"Martin Mertens," he answered absentmindedly, stuck in his own thoughts of the candy reality he was starting to accept he was actually in. Sentient candy… a whole town made out of it, actually! Was it some sort of mutation? Was this what they were scared of when they forbade anyone from leaving the island?

There was a small silence that followed his answer. The princess looked rather taken back, as if she was not expecting what he said. However, she quickly recovered from her brief moment of shock, hastily scribbling down something as she looked back up at him. "Okay Martin, how did you arrive here? We don't see many humans around here," she asked.

How did he get here? That sure was a bullet he wanted to dodge. He took himself out of his thoughts, giving the princess a fake exasperated face. "Look, it's been a rough few days. My head's throbbing like my brain's about to explode or something. I'm not exactly in a state to recall anything that big," he said, making sure to stress the pain in his statement. Ironically, it wasn't much of a lie.

"I disagree," the princess replied as she started to write something down.

"How come, Princess?" he asked, still over exaggerating his pain.

The princess put down her pen at looked at Martin. "Well, your head seems to have quite a medical history attached to it. Not only do you have damage due to physical trauma, but emotional trauma as well. Both leave noticeable differences in the brain. We have medicine and remedies to help with your concussion, but in order to help with your emotional trauma, you're going to have to voluntarily share what caused it," she explained. Her gaze turned expectant.

Martin sighed. She seemed the persistent type, and he didn't have the energy to go back and forth until she eventually gave up and let him be. Was this lack of energy apart of the emotional trauma she had mentioned?

"Uh, the details are kinda fuzzy, but I remember it was a stormy night… Extremely stormy…" he started, pausing to formulate what exactly he was going to say. "I was running from… something, er, some _people_. Yeah. So these guys were chasing me, and there was a tiger, too. So I was running from these guys and a tiger, but I was cornered at the oceanside, you see. I think I got on some sort of raft or something, but not without a fight. After I bested the tiger, I think the storm carried me away, and here I am now. It was a brutal fight, brutal. I'll spare you the details, Princess," he said, waving his hand as if to dismiss the subject.

The princess stared at him with an unconvinced expression, her eyebrow cocked. "You and I both know that's not true," she said flatly.

"What're you talkin' about? I'm tellin' the truth!" he replied in an offended tone that didn't really match his current emotions, leaning against the candy cane frame of his hospital bed. How would she have known if he was lying, anyways? Was it the dumb wires attached to his head? Nonetheless, he sighed once more. He guessed right; she was going to be persistent. "Look, thinkin' about it stresses me out, okay?" he eventually confessed, glancing off.

"That's the entire point of sharing it. It won't stress you out so much later if you just talk about it now," she reminded him, giving him a reassuring smile.

Martin furrowed his brow. Was she right? Should he just tell her the actual truth? He almost remembered Minnie saying something somewhat similar before, so it had to hold some scientific merit. Even then, he didn't know if she would even believe him this time around, considering some of what he said before was true, but maybe it was just because she could see right through his tricks (thanks to the wires, he suspected). Besides, she didn't know him, right? There would be no repercussions if he told. There was still the possibility that she was a figment of his imagination, anyways.

He ended up giving the princess a small smile and a shrug. What did he have to lose? "Alright, Princess, but you're in for quite a story.

"About, say, five years ago, I was just your normal vagabond thriving with my own business. People wanted a way off our cozy little island, and I showed them the path in exchange for gadgets. …Now, leaving the island was illegal, so I never went with. Unfortunately, those folks were almost always caught," Martin started, looking up at the ceiling. It wasn't until he actually tried to genuinely recall something that he noticed how fuzzy his memory actually was.

"So you were a conman?" the princess asked, her tone of voice noticeably different than his wife's when she asked a similar question. The princess sounded like she was poorly trying to hide the disgust she felt.

As much as he tried, he couldn't repress the thought that Minerva likely felt the same way about him now. Disgusted, disappointed, confused, fearful… disheartened. All things he caused by his past catching up to him. He was a conman, a dirty, dirty conman in her eyes that took her son.

 _Not. Now. Mertens. Pull yourself together. Thinking about it just makes it worse. Not now, not now,_ not now _._

"I prefer the term con _artist_ ," he responded, pretending to brush of the statement that actually stung. He'd be a dead man before he showed weakness in front of someone, especially a stranger. "Anyways, one day there was this crazy little widow lady with, I don't know, a bodyguard or somethin'? She wanted to leave, and she paid up her end of the bargain, but she forced me to come with to leave the island. The Seekers found us after that, and I was jostled out of a boat and broke both my legs. I know, sounds unfortunate, but that's where I met the best Helper on Hub Island, Doctor Minerva Campbell." His expression softened upon saying her name, a small, genuine small smile appearing.

"Oh, she sure was something… At first, I just saw her as some opportunity to escape. I tried to charm my way out of re-ed- uhh, re-education, but it turns out she had a certain charm, too! We had dinner after I got out of the hospital, and things felt… different. She wasn't just another person I'd conned. Man, this is gonna sound cheesy, but… she had the kindest heart of anyone I've ever met…" he trailed off, his eyebrows knitting together. He stared at the bed sheets. "...Kind enough to help even the most pathetic blokes, heh… I fell in love with her.

"S-So!" Martin exclaimed, looking away in embarrassment. His face grew hot. Did he reveal too much, let down his guard too much? The Princess chuckled. "Uhm… Flash forward, we got married and had a son named Finn. One day, yesterday, actually, Minerva left for work, so I was left with Finn. Stay-at-home-dad style, yanno? The little guy was only six months old, easy to entertain. Late that evening, the widow and some bodyguard-henchmen-guys just come crashing through the window, wanting revenge for that con I pulled on them. I got a raft that I had stashed near our house… I was planning to just circle around the island, but it started storming real hard, and I guess we accidentally got in the Guardian's range or something?" The pace of his pulse started to speed up as he reflexively gripped his blanket tight. He made sure to look everywhere but the Princess.

He didn't exactly know why he was getting so nervous. What this too much? He had mulled over these exact same events tons of times before he start explaining them out loud, kind of. Sure, he felt overwhelming regret and loneliness, but never anxiety. Was it the mere fact that he was explaining everything out loud? To someone else?

The sound of pen against paper replaced the absence of Martin's voice. "Who's 'The Guardian'?" the Princess eventually asked, her voice full of curiosity.

"Uh, a giant robot that lived in the ocean outside our island to protect us or something. Caught a lot of Hiders, too… uh, people who wanted to leave the island," Martin responded, his speech coming out faster than intended. He nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at the blanket once more. "That thing attacked us, and… I needed to protect Finn. I climbed onto the Guardian, punched it in the eye, and subdued it with one of my old gadgets."

He paused, fixing his stare on one of the windows. Words began to spill out of his mouth without his control. "I don't know what happened to Finn. He… I can only guess that he just went sailing in another direction… I wanna believe he survived, but… I don't know. ...I don't know. In fact, I was pretty sure _I_ drowned, but I guess fate had other plans, huh?" He gave a weak chuckle, finally glancing back at the Princess.

The Princess looked at him with a focused stare, as if she were analyzing his every word and movement. She then blinked, looked down at her clipboard, and quickly wrote something else down. Without looking up, she asked, "May I have a few of your hairs?"

"Uhh, come again?"

"I want to run a DNA test. There's a few humans here, maybe we can find out if one of them is your son," she said with a knowing smile. Though, it did look like she was smiling more to herself than at Martin.

"That would mean a lot, Princess, really, but I don't really think he drifted over here," Martin said with slight dismay in an attempt to cover up his lingering doubts. It didn't work at that well.

"Don't be silly!" the princess said, standing up from the stool with a smile on her face. "There's only really a handful of humans who actually reside here... Well, there's only one that's fully human currently, and even then… It's complicated. But the point is that it's not going to be all that hard."

"Alright, but I'm telling ya, he went in the opposite direction of me, so I doubt he's here," he argued, taking in a deep breath. In that statement, there was a poignant unspoken, " _Don't even bother. I don't want to get my hopes up."_

Despite Martin's reaction to everything, the princess still smiled at him. It was almost creepy, as if she knew something that he didn't. "It wouldn't hurt to try," she reassured hopefully. "Plus, I already have a DNA sample from the other human. The process should only take a few days, maybe more with how long it takes to analyze and match your DNA sequences."

Martin shrugged, silently sighing as he grabbed a few strands of his now dry hair. With an effortless pull, the hairs detached from his head. He handed them to the princess. "It's all yours. Knock yourself out," he stated, holding out his hand.

Of course, he knew whoever this other human was couldn't be his son. They just couldn't be. But hey, the princess was right. It wouldn't hurt to try, even if just to humor himself and buy him time to think of a way out of this weird place.

The princess set down her clipboard, reaching in her lab coat. She took out a pair of pale pink gloves, grabbing the hairs from Martin's hands. "Thanks. I'll have a member of my staff come watch over you as I start the test," she said, turning to leave the room.

"Hey, my connin' days are behind me!" Martin exclaimed lightheartedly, jokingly crossing his arms.

The princess spun back around to face him, chuckling slightly. "It's not that. It just takes a bit to get the results, yanno? It might take a few days, and we don't need you dying on us," she said, her expression faltering slightly. She muttered something inaudibly to herself, something like her previous statement, but not exactly…

He couldn't piece the phrase together. Furrowing his brow, he asked, "Say that again?"

The princess simply shook her head, causing Martin's brow to furrow further. "It's nothing. Hey, Peps!" she shouted at the opening.

Within a second, a small peppermint creature in a fancy navy blue tuxedo came into the infirmary. He walked in with his hands behind his back and a smile on a his face. "Yes, Princess Bubblegum?" the peppermint creature answered.

 _Hey, so that's her name! Fitting_ , Martin thought as Princess Bubblegum walked up to the peppermint creature.

"Watch over this washed up human. I have to go to my lab for a bit. Keep him fed and his vitals in check," she instructed.

The peppermint creature curiously glanced at Martin for a second, before returning his eyes to the princess. He gave a small nod in understanding. "Of course, Princess," he answered. With that, Princess Bubblegum quickly left the room with Martin's hairs in her gloved hands.

The peppermint creature smiled at Martin, waving at him. "Hello! I'm Peppermint Butler, the Princess's loyal, royal servant," said Peppermint Butler as he took Princess Bubblegum's place on the stool at the end of Martin's bed.

Martin pursed his lips in thought as he awkwardly stared at the sentient candy being. After an uncomfortable silence, the human finally said, "Totally hypothetical here, but if I were to lick you, would that be weird? Would you be offended?"

Peppermint Butler simply sighed. It was going to be a long 'bit.'


	3. Chapter 3: Innocent Child

**Chapter Three  
Innocent Child**

" _It just takes a bit to get the results, yanno? It might take a few days, and we don't need you dying on us." Her face faltered as her mind wandered to the sixteen-year-old boy who needed to hear the story she had just been told. "...He doesn't need you dying on him."_

Bonnibel rushed to her lab with the human's hairs, her thoughts spiraling uncontrollably in her mind. That man back in the infirmary… surely he couldn't actually be Finn's father. He looked to be in his mid-twenties at best, maybe his early thirties at worst. Regardless, he looked entirely too young to be Finn's father. That man had to be at least in his forties by now.

Also, the way Finn always described Martin was off from the man in the infirmary as well. Finn had described his father as lazy, selfish, and emotionally barren, but the man in the infirmary seemed decent, even charming at points, if not troubled. The personalities just didn't match.

Perhaps the most peculiar thing, however, was his thoughts. His brainwaves showed that the story about him, his wife, and baby Finn was true. He wasn't lying, or shying away from the issue like Finn described. He didn't try to escape, and even if he did, he was certainly too weak to do so.

Did Martin revert back to how he was in the past? Was he actually from the past? Or was this just another scheme that he had set up to get something he wanted? Bonnie couldn't be entirely sure, and it honestly made her head hurt. Maybe she could find out with the DNA test. After all, with his brainwaves and the DNA, she should be able to decode it. She learned the hard way that a lot of strange things in Ooo left epigenetic markings on human DNA.

With her free hand, Bonnie opened the door to her lab. She took a deep breath. If the best was to be believed about Martin, then there was no time to waste.

* * *

"I'm telling you, man, that's Banana Guard #17! It's in the face!"

"All their faces look the same, Jake. Besides, Banana Guard 17 is kinda lopsided. This is Banana Guard 33. He's all serious and junk, you know? He lacks _finn-esse_."

"Dude, was that a pun?"

"Heck yeah, brother!"

"...Okay, that _was_ pretty good."

"Thanks, man."

The uncharacteristically stoic banana guard opened the door to Princess Bubblegum's laboratory. He stiffly gestured for Finn and Jake to enter. After they stepped into the lab, the banana guard closed the door without a word. The echo of his footsteps were heard as he climbed back up the stairs.

"Yeah, that's definitely Banana Guard 33," Jake admitted, staring at the closed door. He stretched his neck upwards towards a small window on the door, so he could effortlessly watch as the banana guard marched away.

Finn, however, was staring at the strangely unorganized lab. A few lights were flickering like they desperately needed to be replaced; multiple papers of data and analysis were strewed across the room unevenly... Thin layers of dust were beginning to form in neglected areas of the room. Finn narrowed his eyes. Princess Bubblegum had to be working on something important to disregard order to such an extent.

"Yo, PB? You in here?" Finn called, his voice echoing throughout the large room.

"Yes! Finn, Jake, I'm glad you made it here so quickly! Come here! I have… important information!" she shouted back from a far corner in the lab. Finn looked over at Jake, confused, but the latter simply shrugged and followed the direction of the princess's voice.

The brothers managed their way through untidiness and clutter until they found Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum huddled away in a corner. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, her lab coat and clothes were all wrinkled and dirtied, and when she turned around to greet the two heroes, there were very prominent bags under her eyes, making it appear as though she hadn't slept in weeks. Finn and Jake flinched at her lack of self care.

"PB, you look awful! What've you been doing down here?" Jake said nonchalantly. Finn shoved him for the rude declaration, but Bonnie paid no mind.

"Just some testing, though it took longer than expected. I just finished, and the results are… interesting," she explained vaguely, glancing away for a moment. Before either of the boys could press her further, she hesitantly continued, "Finn, about a week ago… a human washed up on one of Ooo's beaches."

"A human?!" Finn repeated, his eyes wide. Jake looked up at him with concern. There was a brief moment of silence before Finn spoke. "What-?! A _real_ human?! Why didn't you tell me?" he questioned almost hysterically. With his thoughts racing a mile a minute, that was the only thing he could manage to utter.

"I wanted to make sure it wasn't just some humanoid creature. Actual humans aren't common in Ooo. Everyone knows that," Bonnie said, sounding both stern and sincere. The princess paused to give Finn a moment or two to process her words, as he still stood wide-eyed.

Besides his own feckless father, Finn hadn't really had a chance to meet an actual human. He wasn't exactly sure if Susan was human anymore, and he never really met Simon when he was still, well, Simon. He didn't necessarily count Betty, either, because he only saw her for about thirty seconds, if that.

He could list off countless humanoids he had met, from kind inventor Moe to the cybernetically enhanced Dr. Gross, but he never really had a chance to truly talk to them about the rarity of their kind. Especially not in the case of Dr. Gross, who had paralyzed him and may or may not have wanted to kill Susan.

Would this human be any different?

After sorting out his mind, Finn regathered himself and politely gestured for Bonnie to go on. She cleared her throat, continuing her previous thought, "When the human regained consciousness in the Candy Infirmary, he told me this strange story… His brainwaves showed it to be true, as crazy as it sounded. It -" She stopped herself almost immediately, looking down at the floor. "Well, I couldn't do it justice trying to explain it. You need to hear it first hand," she eventually said, anxiously fiddling with the sleeves of her lab coat.

Silence filled the room as she refused to elaborate fully. Finn opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. Instead, he looked over at Jake, who shared the same knowing glance. "You're stalling, PB," Jake accused, crossing his arms. In response, the princess only gave a small sigh.

Finn could sense her nerves, and it was rather strange. She was almost never nervous, or at least she hid it well. It was weird… what did she have to say? "PB, what's going on?" he asked quietly.

Bonnie hesitated, but eventually she said, "It's very personal and very important to you, Finn, but it's complicated. I don't know how you'll react. If this goes bad, I don't want to hurt you." She avoided eye contact with the human boy.

"Well if it's important, then why are we wasting time? Just lay it on me!" Finn said, gesturing to himself. _If it's a human, of course it'll be personal and important_ , he thought without digging deeper into her words. He wanted to make sure he was fully listening when she broke 'the news.'

The princess gave Finn a sympathetic look, which didn't go unnoticed. Finn furrowed his brow in response, but nonetheless tried to stay curious as he waited for the Princess to continue. Though, he ultimately went against his own goals, as he couldn't help but let his mind wander. This wasn't something she could control with science, was it?

There was another long pause before Bonnie finally spoke. "The human…" she started, looking back towards her results. "…It's Martin. Your dad, Finn."

Finn stared blankly at Bonnie for several moments, even looking down at the floor in an attempt to fully comprehend the information. Eventually, he uttered the phrase, "Martin's in Ooo?", but there were so many other things left unspoken.

 _Was that really what this was all about?_ he thought. _I mean, I guess he did kind of leave with the Comet and all, but… why would this be important? Did he manipulate PB in any way? No, PB is way too smart to fall for any of that bizz…_

Jake, on the other hand, carried a confused complexion. "Wait, didn't Martin 'ascend to a higher plane of existence' or whatever with the Catalyst Comet?" he asked, his head cocked to the side.

Bonnie gave a small nod. "Allegedly, but this isn't that Martin. I believe _this_ Martin travelled here from the past."

At this, Finn perked his head up. "What?" he said quietly at the same time Jake said, "He's from _where_?"

Princess Bubblegum grabbed a few papers from an unorganised pile on the nearest table. "I got few of his hairs to run a DNA test. I compared his DNA to yours, Finn, and you have a lot of matching DNA sequences, just like a parent and child would, even though he doesn't look old enough to be your father now," she explained, briefly showing them the results as she spoke. "There were also epigenetic markings in Martin's DNA, these sort of imprints on his genes that show he's travelled through something unnatural, likely a time portal of sorts. With all this information, I've concluded he's from the past. It's not the Martin you know, and I have scientific proof of it."

There was a moment of uneasy silence. Finn stared at the papers in the Princess's hands. She _was_ smart enough to tell if he was lying, and she had no reason herself to lie… Could this human really be his dad from the past?

...Maybe he could finally learn why his parents abandoned him.

Finn started fiddling with the fingers on his mechanical arm, shifting his gaze back to the floor. "So that story… does it explain why he and my mom left me?" he asked awkwardly, refusing to look directly at Bonnie.

"It's much more complicated than that, but yes," Bonnie answered. She gave a small smile towards the human boy. "I could tell this Martin cared about you very much, Finn, and I can only guess what dastardly things turned him into what you know today. I just want _this_ Martin to know you're okay, and I want _you_ to finally know where you came from, but that has to come from you talking to him first hand."

Finn thought on her words for a moment. "Where is he?" he asked, finally looking back up to the Princess.

"The Candy Kingdom Infirmary. We've been treating his multiple head injuries there. Hey, not so fast!" she shouted as Finn and Jake started towards the laboratory door. "I think I need to talk to him first. You know, to ease him into things, but I'm gonna have to clean up beforehand," she said calmly, looking down at her less-than-professional appearance.

"Oh. Okay," Finn said. Both he and Jake returned to their idle stances.

Bonnie hurried past the brothers, her stained labcoat flying behind her. "Just stay here! I'll come and get you when it's time!" she shouted as she approached the laboratory doors.

When the door slammed behind the princess, Finn's eyes shifted over to the pages of results and analysis left astray on the nearest table. He slowly walked over to them. In the mess of papers, he saw a picture of his young father taken from the Candy Hospital. Hesitantly, he picked it up, staring at it for a considerable amount of time. The image of his father as he was now entered his mind…

So much had physically changed about him over the years. He had lost hair, gained weight, grew a beard… Perhaps the same could be said emotionally as well? Bonnie did say he cared, but she also said that things were complicated…

"Hey, Finn, are you okay? You're a bit 'soul-searchy' right now." Jake's voice caused Finn to jump, but it also broke him out of his thoughts. Finn turned to his adoptive brother, still holding the picture of young Martin in his hands.

"I don't know," Finn answered, looking back down at the picture. His mind was swarming with questions. Did Martin really care for him at one point in time? If he did, then why did he abandon his infant son? "It's just hard to imagine Martin being anything but a self-absorbed jerk… but PB wouldn't lie to us… Not about something like this."

"I just don't trust this, man. I got a bad feeling in my gut," Jake said exasperatedly, holding out his stretched stomach. "What if Martin's got an extremely elaborate plan to use you again?" he asked, seriousness taking over his tone as he let go of his stomach.

"Why would he even care? He's at a higher plane of existence or whatever. I don't think he needs me at this point," Finn said dejectedly, putting down the picture. Tears were beginning to involuntarily well up in his eyes as fears from the past were creeping out of his mind vault, and he didn't like it. He tried to blink them away. "I just… I think PB's telling the truth, and I want to see this through. If I don't, then I lose my chance of learning more about myself, and humans, and I don't want to lose that chance."

He gave Jake a pleading look, just hoping that his brother would understand. After a short moment, Jake sighed, and though he still looked a bit uneasy, he smiled at Finn. "I'll be behind you if he tries anything," Jake said defiantly.

Finn smiled slightly. "I know you will."

* * *

Bonnibel tried to hide her grin. _Finally,_ she thought as she practically ran to her room. _Finn can at least know_ something _about his past_. She glided past her servants and other castle staff, both excited and nervous for the events to come. She had to be quick, for anything in this situation could go wrong so easily, and she needed it so desperately to go right.

 _There's no time to waste._

* * *

 **A/N**

Thank you all so much for reading this story :) I really didn't think I'd get many reviews or anything just because Martin's not exactly a popular character, so it means a lot that you guys are excited for this story!

However, I feel like I should say, I never intended this story to be very long, only about 6-7 chapters originally, as it sort of just started out as a "what if" thought experiment that kind of turned into a character study for Martin. What Islands turned his character arc into intrigued me, so here we are!

However, as I was proofreading my chapters, I found a plot hole I can't believe I missed, so I'm having to re-write the second half of this story. That means it's probably going to be longer! (Maybe 7-13 chapters, depending on how I lay everything out. I also still have to _figure_ everything out, ha.) Though, that also means updates may take longer; they've only been so frequent because I've already written all of this story out.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! :)  
(which I proofread and posted right before I went to bed ((and also right after I finished my homework, because high school amiright. I have no free time, like, zilch)), so pardon any grammar mistakes! I tried my best to fix them, but it's pretty late so I'm not as awake, obviously! So sorry, I just wanted to get this chapter out today!)

~Emily Believes xoxo


	4. Chapter 4: Stubborn Tendencies

**Chapter 4  
Stubborn Tendencies**

Bonnie was walking ridiculously fast, practically jogging. She was trying to sort the many documents in her hands while not running into anyone. Finn and Jake were hurrying to follow her, colliding with people a bit more than the distracted princess. She had told them she was ready, that they could go out, that Finn could meet his young father in the…

"Uh, PB... we just passed the infirmary," Finn said, pointing towards the hallway behind them that began to grow more distant. Yet, even with the candy hospital growing farther and farther away, the Princess didn't slow down.

"Yeah, I thought about it. We're not going to the infirmary anymore," she responded, turning abruptly around a corner. The brothers rushed behind her, nearly running into a wall in the process.

Jake looked wide-eyed at the Princess. " _Whaaaat?_! You mean you're not bringing us to Past Martin?!" he practically shouted. Bonnie shushed him. "You're not bringing us to past Martin?!" he repeated quieter, making his head smaller to accompany his softer volume.

"No, I'm bringing 'Past Martin' to you."

The Princess slid to a stop in front of a pair of large doors, Finn and Jake almost running into her. She nodded to the Banana Guards who were stationed there, and they nodded back, silently opening the doors.

A large, beautimous garden was presented. Wellkept yellow grass surrounded a multitude of candy flowers, and an elegant bench sat in front of a large, trimmed hedge that formed a maze of sorts. Faint voices of those from the nearby Candy Village could be heard, but besides that, the garden was as tranquil as could be.

The bright sun glared down on the three as they stepped outside. "Woof! It's hot as Flame Kingdom out here!" Finn exclaimed, taking off his signature bear hat, which revealed his unkempt blonde hair.

"I didn't want to worry any of the other patients with this, so I decided to have you guys talk out here," the Princess explained. Finn nodded, peering out at the wonderful garden. "I'm going to get Martin. It'll only take a minute. Just wait here!" Just as quickly as she entered, she turned around and went back inside. The garden doors slammed closed behind her.

* * *

Bonnie tried her best to recompose herself after rushing back to the infirmary from outside. The cardio she just performed was not the only reason her heart was beating fast. This was really about to happen, wasn't it? Finn would finally get to know more about humans; Martin could rest assured that his son was alive and okay… She took a deep breath, just hoping everything would go as planned.

The pristine floors of the castle hallways were replaced by checkered tiles when Bonnie stepped into the infirmary. The sound of her shoes clicking against the floor caused patients to look up at her. The few candy people greeted her with, "Hello, Princess!" or something of the like. She warmly gave them salutations as she walked up to the bed of the patient she was there to visit: Martin Mertens.

Martin sat upright on his bed, his legs hanging off the side. He had redressed in the same clothes he was in when he was first dragged into the infirmary - a light grey sweatshirt with dark grey jeans, and unfortunately, no shoes. His long hair was now pulled back into a low ponytail, and a few bandages were wrapped around his head. Beside him was Peppermint Butler, who was standing on a stool, holding a stethoscope to the human's heart.

"Hey, Princess!" Martin said upon seeing Bonnie, shooting her a wink and a one handed finger-gun.

"Hello, Martin," Bonnie responded, smiling at the human in front of her. She turned to Peppermint Butler, asking, "How have his vitals been holding up?"

"Both his breathing and pulse have been consistently normal, and he hasn't had a significant rise or drop in body temperature," reported Peppermint Butler, removing the stethoscope from Martin's chest. The peppermint creature climbed off the stool to put the medical equipment in their proper places.

Bonnie nodded. "And his head injuries?" she asked, spinning around so her voice was directed at her butler.

"Improving ever so slightly. His memory hasn't been damaged any further, and he no longer experiences painful migraines, but he seems to have developed difficulty sleeping. He's been up at ludicrous hours in the halls," he answered, his words followed by the equipment cabinet creaking to a close.

Bonnie narrowed her eyes. "I see," she murmured, briefly glancing over her shoulder at the human. Then, again, she nodded, putting her papers on the nightstand next to Martin's bed. "Thanks, Peps."

"Of course, m'lady."

Bonnie turned to face Martin again, the human awkwardly sitting at the edge of his hospital bed. _Did he really try to escape?_ she thought with disdain. "Up at night in the halls?" she said sternly, crossing her arms and giving the human a pointed look.

Martin put up his hands in defense. "Hey, I get restless when I can't sleep! That's from the concussion! Besides, can you blame me? This castle is beautiful!" he said, gesturing widely.

Bonnie sighed to herself. "Mhm," she hummed, unconvinced. She didn't believe a single world he'd just uttered. She tried her best to brush it off, for Finn, but she was starting to sense irking similarities between Martin and his future counterpart. "Well, you're here now, and I suppose that's all that matters. We have more important matters to discuss. Martin, you said earlier that you thought you drowned before you washed up here, correct?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I think I know why you didn't drown. You see, there were imprints left in your DNA that indicated you came into contact with something otherworldly, and I believe that otherworldly thing is a time portal."

"A… time portal?" Martin repeated with an nearly flat tone. Confusion was also very prominent in his voice. He stared at her with eyebrows raised. "No offense, Princess, but that sounds absolutely nuts."

"You're in a castle that's mostly made of sugar and full of sentient candy people. I'd say a time portal isn't the strangest thing."

"But it's up there!"

Bonnie licked her lips, her patience wearing thin. "I didn't just draw that conclusion out of the blue… I compared your DNA to the DNA of the other human I mentioned earlier, and there was roughly a fifty percent match. That's how much a parent shares with a child." She paused momentarily to wait for his reaction, regaining a small smile.

Martin's face grew blank, many diverging emotions travelling through him at once. Bonnie's face faltered as silence between the two grew. Eventually, Bonnie noticed Martin's hands slowly forming into fists. "He went off in a completely different..." he eventually started, trailing off. Looking up at Bonnie, Martin gave a conflicted stare that was hard to read. "You sure you don't have faulty data or something?"

Sensing the growing tension, Bonnie quickly interjected, "I'm sure! Please believe me when I say I've double and triple checked this. Here!" She quickly rummaged through her papers, shoving a picture in his direction, a picture of Finn. Martin hesitantly took it. His face almost immediately softened as he stared at the picture.

"See? Martin, Finn is here, but Finn is also sixteen years old. That's why I believe you came here through a time portal. You travelled about fifteen years into the future," Bonnie explained, plopping down next to Martin on the hospital bed.

Martin continued to silently stare at the picture. It was a picture of a teenage human boy and a probably-mutated dog that was likely taken recently, if he had to guess. Both of them were smiling big, goofy grins outside a pretty impressive treehouse. Martin couldn't help but draw connections between the teenage boy and his lovely, lost wife. He could see little parts of her in his appearance. They shared similar facial structure, eye color, skin pigment… He could tell in a heartbeat that this boy and the little baby he clutched so tightly on that raft were one in the same.

It felt so unreal. He really did travel through time, but that didn't matter to him at the moment. There was really only one thought that he kept repeating in his mind. _Finn's alive. Thank God, he survived… and he looks so much like Minnie…_

After a moment, Martin noticed that Finn appeared to be missing a few teeth and had a some scars on his face. He ran his thumb across the face of the human boy. "What's happened to him?" he quietly asked aloud, more to himself than anyone else.

However, Bonnie answered anyways, "To say 'a lot' would be an understatement. But I guess that's for him to explain." Without another word, she stood up from the bed and started to gather her papers.

It took a minute for Martin to fully comprehend what the princess had said, but when he did, he grew livid. He stood up from the bed a little too fast, practically shouting, "Wait, he's _here_?!" The other patients turned their heads towards the human admittee.

Bonnie quickly gestured for the other patients to not worry, causing them to return to their own devices. The princess herself turned back to Martin. "I invited him here specifically for you two to talk. Trust me, there's a lot to talk about," she answered. "If you're ready, he's in the garden now."

Martin couldn't believe his ears. He looked down at the picture that he still held in his hands. He almost didn't want to learn what Finn had to suffer through without his parents. Hub Island might've been a bit boring, but at least he would've been safe, and he would have all of his teeth as a teenager. But at the same time, he wanted to meet this boy who survived. He wanted - no, _needed_ to meet his son, regardless of age or circumstance. This might be his only chance.

With that in mind, Martin pocketed the picture and looked over at the Princess. "Ready when you are," he said, and they exited the infirmary.

As they walked through the halls, Martin started to psych himself up for this life-changing conversation. He would get to know more about his son! He would get to know about the adventures Finn went on and how he dealt with this strange, mutated world. He would get to know-

…He would get to know how Finn felt about him. Finn would get to know more about him, and how he couldn't come back.

Martin immediately started to psych himself out, his heart beating faster as the double doors to the garden drew ever so closer. "Hey, Princess, maybe this isn't such a good idea after all!" he said nervously, stepping in front of Bonnie so she couldn't open the garden doors.

"Why not?" Bonnie asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, I was just thinking about… about… about how tired I am! This concussion's really been messin' up my sleep schedule, and, well… I'm just not in the state to be havin' such an important conversation. You understand, don't you, Princess?" Martin explained in vain, trying to droop his eyelids so his words appeared to be true.

Even still, the princess didn't seem convinced. "You seem pretty alert right now," Bonnie noted flatly. Martin darted his eyes, trying to figure out a clever retort that would lead him back to the infirmary. However, Bonnie gave a frustrated sigh, catching Martin's attention. "Finn hardly knows anything about his family, or humans, for that matter. He's been the only _actual_ human in Ooo for a while, and he's all messed up about it, so the _least_ you could do is stop trying to run away and actually talk to him!" she said, her voice getting louder as she continued to speak.

Sensing the princess's strong feelings, Martin considered this for a moment. He took a deep breath, glancing at the doors behind him. "He's not gonna like what he hears," he said as a last resort.

"You won't know unless you actually talk to him," Bonnie quickly responded. Before Martin could even begin to open his mouth, she continued to spout out sharp words. "Do you have any idea what he's been through? How much _your_ actions have affected him?"

Bonnie started to pace back and forth as she rambled. "Do you know how important it is that Finn hears that he wasn't left? From _you_? He's expecting you right now, and if you don't show up, it's going to psychologically tear him apart!" She stopped pacing and turned to face Martin, her fierce stare piercing right through Martin's soul. "Do you even care about your son?!"

"Of course I do," Martin said quickly, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Then stop being the coward he knows you as, _man up_ , and go talk to him!"

Martin took in a sharp breath, looking down at the floor. The scars on Finn's face in the photograph popped into his mind. He mentally groaned, guilt weighing heavy on his conscience. What was it about this woman that made him so easily persuaded? "Well, I guess we're going outside, then," was his gruff response. He put his hands in his pockets as Bonnie regained her composure and opened the doors, walking right past the confused Banana Guards.

The garden was breathtaking, and while Martin would love to distract himself with its beauty, his eyes were immediately drawn to a lovely bench that sat two people: a probably-mutated dog and a teenage human boy, the same dog and teenage boy from the picture.

 _Finn…_


	5. Chapter 5: New Meaning

**Chapter 5**  
 **New Meaning**

Martin's mouth dropped open upon seeing his son, his much older son. Finn appeared to be in a similar state of shock. The two simply gawked at one another for several moments, long enough for both of them to sort through their thoughts.

"Finn?" Martin muttered, just loud enough for the brothers to hear. He blinked several times to make sure the boy wasn't a hallucination of sorts, but even he knew his head injuries had healed beyond that point. This wasn't a figment of his imagination; it was real. It had to be.

Without thinking, Finn responded, "Martin?" His inflection was confused, hopeful… scared? It made Martin's heart grow heavy.

Martin repeated his name quieter to himself, feeling a bit uneasy. Why did his son just call him by his first name? He furrowed his brow. …What happened in the fifteen years he just warped through?

At that moment, Bonnie coughed loudly, looking pointedly at the probably-mutated dog. "We'll give you two some space," she said, not-so-subtly gesturing the dog towards her.

"Oh! Yeah! Space…," the dog said awkwardly, quickly hopping off of the bench. He pointed two fingers at Martin, mouthing the words "I'm watching you" as he walked around Finn and over to Bonnie. The princess too eyed Martin cautiously.

Slowly, Martin shuffled his way over to Finn, awkwardly sitting down next to him. An uncomfortable quietude followed, as neither of them were quite sure how to start the conversation the princess so desperately wanted them to have. The sound of chirping birds and chattering candy people seemed to drown out their thoughts.

Martin took this chance to look at his son. Scratches and scars from the picture were much more noticeable up close in broad daylight, and the boy held a rather complex, uneasy stare that was affixed to the ground. (A type of stare that, in Martin's opinion, the boy was entirely too young to hold.) He also had brilliant, bright blonde hair that had been hidden under his hat, and a shiny prosthetic arm that Martin surprisingly missed upon first glance.

Martin's eyes widened. "Hey, hold on a second, why on Earth do you have a mechanical arm?!" he said in alarm, completely breaking the semi-awkward-semi-serene atmosphere. Finn jumped.

The teenager sat in stunned, confused silence, unsure of how to properly answer the question. "It's… complicated," Finn eventually said, looking back down at the ground.

Martin slowly nodded. "Well, we've got time. I want to know what's gonna happen to you, or what's already happened, I guess."

' _I want to know what's gonna happen to you.'_ Hearing those words spoken in the same voice that constantly undermined his feelings was so foreign to Finn. It made his stomach churn at the thought of telling this man he had a huge part to play in all of it. After all, this wasn't really the person who tore his arm off, right? Not yet, at least…

Finn started to anxiously rub the back of his neck. "Uh, well, I met… you, for the first time," he awkwardly said, averting his gaze from Martin's.

Martin furrowed his brow. _Did I do that to him?_ he thought. _Did I hurt him?_ He sat in stunned silence; though, the more he mused on the subject, the less surprised he grew, especially as his mind wandered back to the princess's words from earlier.

" _Do you have any idea what he's been through? How much_ your _actions have affected him?"_

" _Do you know how important it is that Finn hears that he wasn't left? From_ you _?"_

" _Do you even care about your son?!"_

In spite of Martin's intrusive thoughts, Finn continued, "You were in a cosmic prison called the Citadel, and… you tried to escape. You used me to escape…" He paused momentarily, for a reason that Martin couldn't quite decipher. Though, almost as fast as Finn stopped, he carried on with his thought,

"...I was pretty worked up about that-" _An understatement_ , Martin thought bitterly. "-so I tried to stop you from leaving by holding onto part of your ship, and then… my arm got torn off. It regrew after a bit because of an eternal bond to this grass sword I had, but then I lost it again, so Princess Bubblegum gave me this prosthetic."

Finn inhaled sharply, thinking about his words carefully. "It's just… you never really cared about anyone but yourself, not even your own son. And now I'm confused, because PB's telling me that you actually cared about me in the past… Past you cares about me now… What happened?"

Emotions weighed heavily on the boy's words, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He was past anger. He was past hatred. All he had left was the lingering trauma of a child who had been abandoned, the hurt of being unwanted, used.

Martin was left in silence again. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt Finn. At least, that was the case right now. Did his antics really get to the point where he didn't even care about his own son? He could hardly even fathom doing that.

Martin sighed. "Look, I don't know what happened," he readily admitted. "I'm from too far back to know that stuff, but…" He took a deep breath to think of his wording. "When we got separated, we were in the ocean, and it was storming like crazy. I was pretty sure you went sailing off in the opposite direction. I wanted to go back to get you, but I couldn't… There was no way I was gonna find you, even if I wasn't drowning, and especially not after that storm. You could've went anywhere over the horizon and I would have no way to track you down. And I couldn't go back to the island… I'd be dead if I showed up without you, so I probably just, didn't. When that stuff happens you just… forget and move on. Find happiness somewhere else, push the bad things back, because who likes writhing in their own guilt and sorrow, you know?

"...You see, before I met your mom, I was a full-time conman, and I got some pretty neat gadgets out of it, too. It was the only other thing I really knew to survive… so when I lost you and your mom and my entire life in one night… Well, you burn enough bridges, the only way to move is forward. By the sounds of it, I probably went back to conning, blocked out the bad memories, and just went on with life." Martin looked out at the garden with an unfocused stare.

"You lost me at sea?" Finn said to himself quietly, furrowing his brow. _Lost at sea, lost at sea,_ he kept repeating in his mind. _Not abandoned._ He looked up at Martin with a hopeful look in his eyes. "So, you didn't abandon me when I was a baby?"

"'Course not!" Martin responded as if it was obvious, turning to look at his son. "I was trying to _save_ you that night! I don't know what I went through that made me abandon you and tear off your arm, but when you were born, you were one of the best things I had goin' for me. You and your mom both… I loved her, and I loved you…" He looked down at Finn and smiled. "...and that's true."

Finn smiled back, if slightly, only for it to fade again. His eyes darted away from Martin's as he thought. "...What happened on that night? Why did you lose me?" he asked.

Martin licked his lips. Somehow, this felt easier to explain to the princess, but Finn deserved to know what really happened. "Well, I goes a bit further back than that night, I'm afraid…"

* * *

Finn listened patiently as Martin recounted the events of that fate-changing night. All of it seemed too good to be true, and he couldn't help but feel a sense of paranoia. What if Jake right about this situation? What if Martin was doing this as an elaborate way to try and get him to do something for him? Martin was practically a professional liar, after all. His newfound happiness could be taken from him in an instant.

But his trust and loyalty to Bonnie was almost unwavering. He trusted her, so he should trust Martin. Besides, why would his father from the present go out of his way to do all of this get something he needed? Surely in a "higher plane of existence" he wouldn't need to piggyback off his son anymore.

So Finn simply sat in stunned silence, trying to process everything in his mind. It was all so bizarre to hear after years of coping with the thought that his parents left him. Maybe none of this would have even happened if Martin wasn't such a crummy person from the beginning.

…Would he even be alive if Martin wasn't such a crummy person?

That thought immediately got pushed into his mind vault.

However, new thoughts quickly arose in Finn's mind, new questions. After a few moments, Finn cut through the silence. "Can you… tell me what was Mom like? A-And the Island?" he asked, looking back up at Martin. Even if he didn't feel a connection to his current father, it was nice to have this bonding moment now.

At the mention of his mother, Martin appeared to grow visibly stressed. However, he quickly covered it up with a smile. "Your mom? Well, she was the best Helper on Hub Island! She was charismatic, caring, funny… Had a desire to help that went beyond morals, considering otherwise she wouldn't have anything to do with me. Heh..." Martin trailed off, his face faltering ever so slightly. He went silent, staring blankly at the hedge in front of him.

Finn furrowed his brows, wanting to open his mouth to ask what was wrong. However, Martin continued before he had the chance, "As far as Hub Island goes, well… The Founders certainly made a comfortable place for humans after being almost wiped out. Some people had assigned roles, like Seekers and Helpers, and some didn't, like yours truly. The Guardian was made to protect us from the dangers, keeping them from entering and keeping _us_ from leaving. I never meant to leave the Island, you know. I didn't want to! It was a pretty nice. For what it was worth, I bet you would've liked it. It would've been a good little place to grow up in."

Finn nodded, trying his best to ignore the stark change of topic off of his mother. _Next question._ "Can you tell me anything about… humans? Human history? Anything?" he asked sheepishly, his face heating up.

Martin thought for a moment, his face scrunching up. "I can only really tell you the history of the Island, bud. I was never really interested in that sorta stuff," he responded. "The Founders came to Hub Island by boat about nine-hundred-something years ago from some apocalyptic event. They built a society from the ground up, and they tell us we're the only humans left. I assume it's still going strong today. No reason for it not to.

"But hey, Hub Island's kinda boring. What about this place, huh? What's your place in this strange world?" He paused for a moment to think, his expression dropping slightly. "Who raised you here?"

Finn licked his lips awkwardly. How exactly do you explain to your biological human father who knows nothing about magic that you were raised by talking dogs? After a moment of hesitation, he slowly pointed towards his brother, the yellow dog, who was sitting on the steps with the princess. "See him? That's Jake. His parents found me in the woods on a leaf and adopted me. I grew up with them until they died when I was about ten or so. That's when Jake and I started to go adventuring, eventually finding this sweet treehouse, which is where we live now. We venture out a lot and fight off evil punks who try to mess up Ooo, like the Lich, Magic Man, Orgalorg, Ice King… Well, I guess Ice King isn't that much of a threat anymore," he listed, counting the evil-doers on his fingers.

Martin nodded in understanding, turning his gaze out towards the garden. That would explain the scars. "So this magic mumbo jumbo is… natural to you?" he asked, his gaze fixated on the garden's candy vegetation.

Finn simply shrugged in response. "I guess. I mean, I grew up with a magical shapeshifting dog as my brother, so it's kinda all I've ever known."

"Hey, I can hear you, you know!" Jake shouted from the castle steps.

"Everyone here's kinda magical, I guess. I'm really one of the only humans here," Finn continued, his more serious tone somewhat contradicting the smile on his face from his brother's outburst.

"Yeah, the Princess told me that," Martin responded.

Finn shrugged once more. "That doesn't really matter, though. Everyone here's different from one another, and that's cool. Ooo is just a really big place that's fun to explore! There's always something new. I like it here," Finn passionately explained. He beamed at Martin, who returned the gesture.

That was the strange thing to Finn, though. It wasn't a smirk or a disingenuous smile, like he was used to. It was authentic. It was real. It was new, and Finn couldn't be happier with it.

* * *

Bonnibel looked at the two family members with a sizable grin on her face. All of her hard work with those tests had _finally_ paid off, and both the humans could sleep a little better at night because of it. She looked over at Jake, who was watching the scene uneasily. "This is going well, don't you think, Jake?" she asked quietly as the father and son continued to talk.

"Yeah, I guess…" Jake answered without averting his gaze. His face continued to narrow as he grew more and more uncomfortable. Finally, he anxiously blurted out, "PB, isn't this like, a paradox or somethin'? With Finn's young dad knowing future stuff about him?"

Bonnie stared blankly at Jake. This situation, a paradox…? After a few moments, she facepalmed and let out a frustrated groan. "I can't believe I didn't that through! I didn't even notice the detrimental qualities this could have… I just knew Finn's relationship with Martin was strained, and I thought that this could help him!" She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her hair in her fist. "Now… Now our timeline might be royally messed up, and…" She paused, slowly opening her eyes and looking over at Jake. "Finn might not come to Ooo!" she whispered.

"What?!" Jake exclaimed, though Bonnie shushed him immediately. "You mean if Martin stays here, Finn's just gonna disappear?!" he added quieter.

"Not completely, but depending on how this plays out, he might disappear from Ooo, and every small influence he's had here might, too. And I don't know how to fix it!" Bonnie frustratingly said, pulling at her gummy hair. She was close to being on the verge of tears.

Jake, ever the rational, started to panic. "There has to be a way; there has to be a way…" he muttered to himself, starting to pace up and down the castle steps. What in the cosmos would be able to fix this?! _Who_ in the cosmos would be able to save Finn?!

…

…

Then it dawned on him.

He stretched his body to form a pocket of sorts right above his tail. From that pocket, he grabbed a card. He quickly opened it. In large handwriting it read, _"If you want to come back and hang out sometime, call me. -P."_ The initial signature glowed pink.

Hastily, Jake wrapped his free arm around Bonnie, stretching it so he could grab Finn and Martin as well. Before they even had time to react, Jake pressed the initial, causing them all to be beamed away in the midst of colorful rays, leaving the garden vacant and quiet.

The four were quickly transported to a large secluded yellow room that existed outside of existence. A giant pink shadow with no source was cast upon the room. Suddenly, it sprang to life when it noticed there were people in the room.

"Prismo!" Jake greeted frantically.

"Hey, Jake! Nice to see you, man," the shadow, the wish master Prismo responded.


	6. Chapter 6: A Wish

**Chapter 6  
A Wish**

Prismo's blue eyes analyzed the four new guests who had just entered his Time Room. His smile faltered slightly as he saw the panicked look on Jake's face, but he tried to maintain his happy exterior. "I see you've brought company," he stated.

The new guests seemed to be here in… unideal circumstances. Bonnibel Bubblegum, scientist Princess of the Candy Kingdom, was frantically looking around the room that was painted yellow from the ceiling to the floor. After gathering her bearings, she finally glanced up at Prismo's face, narrowing her eyes. "Who are you?" she immediately asked, gingerly stepping away from the mysterious shadow. " _What_ are you? What is this place?!"

"Hey, hey! It's alright! I don't mean no harm," Prismo said calmly, holding his arms up in defense.

"Yeah, Prismo's a pretty chill dude," Jake the Dog agreed. He smiled at the Princess, who still looked rather tense. Jake himself was tense as well - Prismo could tell - but was trying his best to cover it up to ease the Princess.

The Princess herself looked over at Finn the Human, seemingly to confirm the truth in Jake's words, and the young human nodded back, giving a thumbs up.

Beside Finn stood a slightly older human - the reason why they were all transported here. The anomaly, Martin Mertens. He stared at Prismo with his brow furrowed, his eyes cautiously scanning the shadow being. "Prismo?" he questioned with a confused inflection.

"That would be me!" Prismo responded happily, trying his best to ease the strained atmosphere.

"So, Prismo, what are you?" Bonnibel asked, her arms crossed. She sounded less alarmed, more curious than anything, but she still stood behind an authoritative tone.

"Oh, I'm a wish master. I grant anyone who comes in my Time Room one wish," he explained with a smile. Bonnibel hummed skeptically, seemingly not convinced; however, Martin wasn't so suspicious.

"Hey, really? So I can wish for anything?" the human asked. His eyes lit up like an excited child's.

"Yeah, man, but you only have one," Prismo responded.

Jake stretched his torso so his upper body was between Martin and Prismo. "You also gotta be _seriously_ specific! Otherwise there's some mad crazy twist," he said matter-of-factly, regurgitating the information that Prismo had told him when he was making his own wish. Finn's eyes widened in realization (likely because of something with his _own_ wish reality), though he ultimately kept to himself.

"That's something I can't control, man. It's just how my magic juices roll," Prismo responded, wiggling his fingers, which were now on the same wall as his face.

Bonnibel rolled her eyes, arms still firmly crossed. "Jake, why are we here?" she asked, sounding slightly exasperated.

"Oh, right! Prismo, we have a situation!" Jake said with a sudden sense urgency, panic returning to his features. He twisted on top of himself so he was facing the wish master. "Finn's dad came here through a time portal, and now he knows a lot about the future! Isn't that going to screw over our timeline?!"

Prismo nodded at Jake's statement. He watched as fear overtook the awkward atmosphere, causing his guests to grow slightly panicked. It made him nervous to continue. "It actually goes a _bit_ deeper than that," Prismo eventually said. "Depending on how this turns out, multiple universes could be totally screwed over," he explained gravely, not exactly hiding his own fears very well.

"Okay, what's the deal here?" Martin demanded, looking both stressed and confused.

Prismo moved closer to his TV wall, causing Martin to nearly trip over himself as the silhouette passed beneath his feet. Prismo pressed a button on his stray remote, which triggered a small visual of the multiverse on the TV wall. "The multiverse is made up of all these different timelines, and in these timelines are smaller alternative timelines, whether they are wish-made or naturally occurring," he started. The visual zoomed in on one of the blue universal blobs, showing a lot of smaller universal blobs within it.

"Oh, so like when your pant-pockets have smaller pockets inside them?" Finn asked, pulling the pockets out of his shorts.

"Yeah, but like, an infinite number of smaller pockets," Prismo clarified. "Finn, your dad is obviously not from here. He's from the past of your timeline, but he came here through a wormhole caused by disturbances an alternate timeline in your universal pocket. That timeline technically wasn't even supposed to happen, but I think the interference you guys had in Finn's alternate wish reality caused it to come into existence. Usually these timelines go away on their own, but this one didn't."

He tapped his remote again, causing a small video of Martin falling off the Guardian to play. Just as In-video Martin slammed into the violent waters, Prismo paused it. Martin cringed.

"Is this really necessary to show?" Martin asked sheepishly, pointedly turning his head from the TV wall. It appeared to emulate his story very closely, how he failed Finn.

"Sorry man, I couldn't fast forward it any closer," Prismo answered with a small shrug. He unpaused the video. In-video Martin slowly went underwater, but as he sank, a blue light began to illuminate the dark ocean. It eventually showed to be a bright, spiralling portal that Martin slowly descended into.

Prismo continued, "See there? After Martin went underwater, the temporary wormhole appeared and connected your times, ipso facto, he ended up here. However, his continued existence in the time you guys came can mess up the future of your timeline. Depending on Martin's actions, Finn may not come to Ooo, and his entire influence across the multiverse may be entirely erased! Ergo, our current problem.

"Luckily, there's a simple solution to this. Martin just has to wish his way back into his rightful place in the timeline and destroy the rogue one that caused the wormhole in the first place. In the right way, of course," Prismo said. "It will reset the events that have happened here, but the multiverse will be much safer as a whole. I would do it myself, but I think if I mess with that donked up timeline directly it's gonna fall apart anyways, which wouldn't help you guys at all." The TV wall changed back the the multiverse visual, showing a small blob harmlessly exploding.

"Wouldn't destroying a timeline in that manner cause the same effect that would mess up the multiverse?" Bonnibel asked, again studying the current visual on the wall with her hand held to her chin.

"Destroying timelines with wish magic instead of the timeline imploding on itself is the difference between collapsing a pillow fort and collapsing a star. Besides, my wishes create and destroy timelines all the time, so it's fine," Prismo nonchalantly explained.

Martin too was staring at the visual on the wall. His head felt like it was spinning right off his body. All he wanted was a second chance, and seemed like he was finally going to get that after these crazy, horrid events. But now he was the one who had to "wish" everyone out of this mess?

He just couldn't catch a break with this stuff, could he?

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Finn, his son, his sweet baby son who he knew he would have to leave. The teenager gave him a somber smile, as if to say, "you got this" without uttering a word. Beside Finn was his adoptive brother, Jake, the probably-mutated stretching dog. "Remember to be _really specific_ ," he reminded, dragging out the last two words for emphasis.

Martin furrowed his brow, exhaling loudly. _Right, right_ , he thought. _That wish_. He began to nervously tap his foot, messing with the strings on his sweatshirt as he looked straight ahead. He had one wish that could change the course of reality as they knew it. He had to wish everything back to normal, back to its mundane, awful ending where he abandoned his son and treated him like dirt… the crippling reality where Minnie probably hated him, where his life had fallen apart…

...Did he really have to go back?

"This is a lot of pressure to put on one guy's shoulders, you know," he blurted, restlessly pushing his hair back.

The others in the room gave the poor man sympathetic, even empathetic looks. Finn licked his lips nervously. Slowly, he approached Martin, putting a hand on his shoulder again. "Hey, if you need some space, we can leave for a bit. There's some sweet asteroids outside we can chill on," he said, pointing to the door above his head.

Without really waiting for a response, Jake grabbed Finn and Bonnie and stretched to the door, leaving the Time Room with only two occupants: Martin and Prismo.

Martin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, glaring down at the floor. A war was going on in his mind, selfish and selfless desires attempting to win the ultimate decision. From what he could tell, Finn was far more important to this reality than he was letting on. If even the slightest possibility of erasing his impact lead them here, then it had to be big.

But at the same time, Finn was just a kid. He didn't deserve to have the weight of the universe on his shoulders. And it's not like Martin was exactly ecstatic about his own fate, either. His life was totally ruined. He would do anything for another chance. He would do anything to give his son a break, a normal life, a good father.

A mother.

God, was there a way for him to be happy without screwing over the universe?

Martin sighed. He needed to stall in some way, to buy him time to mull this over a bit. "Hey, just out of curiosity, are there any universes where my life doesn't fall apart?" he asked, cringing internally afterwards. His tone sounded a little too pitiful for his liking.

"Of course, man. There's an infinite number of alternate universes, and there's more than plenty of you living happily with your family." Almost immediately after the explanation, Prismo's face fell, quite literally, as he moved closer to Martin. "You want that back, don't you?" he asked gently.

"How'dya guess?" Martin said, his voice dripping with melancholy. He practically refused to look up, refused to look at Prismo. His gaze seemed forever fixed on the floor. "But I suppose second chances are hard to come by 'round here, huh?"

Prismo scrunched up his face in thought, a conflicted spark gleaming in his eyes (not that Martin would know - he was busy checking out the floor). After many moments, the cosmic entity let out a deep sigh. He said, "Well, between you and me… the only reason I'm here is because I was given a second chance."

This caught Martin's attention. He look up with confusion spread across his tired features.

Prismo looked at the ceiling thoughtfully, saying, "I don't think I've ever told anyone this before…" before returning his eyes to Martin. He wasted no time shedding light on the situation.

"A lot of cosmic beings nowadays used to be mortals. The only reason I'm here right now as a wish master is because my mortal self is in an eternal sleep. I'm simply the manifestation of the ongoing dream of an old man. I wasn't even that much of a good guy when I was a mortal, so if the universe didn't allow me to live on like this, I would just be unconscious forever, and what's the fun in that?" A smile crept its way onto Prismo's face. "Does that make sense?"

"Not at all."

"Good." Martin's face just grew more bewildered, so Prismo continued, "What I guess I'm trying to say is… I didn't really deserve a second chance, but look where I am now. Sometimes that second chance is all you need. So, if you want… we don't exactly have to do the wish exactly as planned."

"What d'ya mean?" Martin asked, an bushy eyebrow raising.

"I think there's a way that you can get a second chance while still keeping everything else the same."

* * *

After what seemed like hours, Finn, Jake, and Bonnie all returned to Prismo's Time Room. The wish master was pensively humming to himself with his eyes turned towards the ceiling. However, once he heard footsteps, his attention turned to the doorway. "Hey, guys!" he welcomed.

The group murmured their greetings as they all looking around for one person, one human that was now missing. "Hey, Prismo, where's Martin?" Finn asked, his tone sounding apprehensive.

"A better reality," Prismo mused with a smile on his face.

Jake's eyes almost immediately widened. "Woah, man! I know Martin's a pretty crummy dude in the future, but he doesn't deserve death!" he bellowed, the reprimand echoing in the small, confined, very yellow room. Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest, while Finn simply knitted his eyebrows together.

"I don't think that's what he meant," the princess noted dryly. "Prismo, did you send Martin to an alternate wish reality?"

The wish master simply nodded.

"Isn't that the exact opposite of what we came here to do?" Bonnie pressed, trying to act as if she were physically confronting him, but that was rather hard to do considering his entire being was merely a shadow on the wall.

Even under the pressure of passive (and not so passive) aggressive accusations, Prismo's smile still remained. "Trust me, everything's under control. That rogue timeline's gone, and there's an exact copy of Martin in the past of your timeline that's going to grow into the Martin you all know. However, the Martin you brought here is currently enjoying a second chance."

There was silence for a brief moment, only to broken by the sound of a teenage boy.

"So he just left without saying goodbye?" Finn suddenly asked, his voice wry with a hint of sadness. Upon a brief examination, the others in the room could tell his face definitely showed sorrow, but not surprise. The elephant was in the room: he was used to this behavior.

Prismo's smile faded as he gave a nod. "If you want, we can _watch_ his alternate wish reality. It should be pretty interesting. Plus, he phrased his wish perfectly, so there shouldn't be any weird biz," he said awkwardly, trying to find a way to cheer up the emotionally distraught Finn.

Bonnibel and Jake both turned their heads to the lone human in the room. It wasn't their place to make such a decision; it was his. Finn stood silently as he mused over the offer for a moment, only to give a neutral, "Why not?" as his response.

With that, the three guests sat down as the wish master brought up the aforementioned video feed on his TV wall. He pressed a button on his remote, and Martin's alternate wish reality began to play.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys!** Sorry **this is literally two months overdue, but** usually **October-December are pretty busy for me, so I didn't really have the time or energy to complete this story. But now I do! I already have the last chapter completed, so be expecting that within the next week!**

 **Thanks for waiting! :D**

 **~Emily Believes xoxo**


	7. Chapter 7: Home

**Chapter 7  
Home**

 _Martin was brought to consciousness abruptly, coughing and sputtering water everywhere. He began breathing heavily. The humming of machinery and the distant ocean waves filled his ears. Weakly, he tried to move, slowly but surely rubbing his eyes. He opened them immediately afterwards, blinking a few times to clear his vision._

 _The only thing he saw was metal, a metal floor. He managed to prop himself up on his elbows to look around. If he had to guess, he was in one of those Seeker ships, right? There was no weird business going on?_

 _Was he saved?_

" _Oh, you're awake!" said a strange voice. He abruptly turned his head to see a large female Seeker with platinum blonde hair sticking out of her cat hat. Kara was her name, right? Minnie spoke of her occasionally._

 _Though, that wasn't what sent Martin to his feet, running to her faster than he had ran in years. No, he became so full of adrenaline because the Seeker was holding something he thought he had surely lost forever: his baby son._

" _Finn!" he shouted, his voice raspy and dry. He wanted to grab the little boy from Kara's arms and hold him tightly, never letting him go, but Martin found himself clinging to Kara just to keep his footing. He was too physically weak to stand._

" _Mr. Mertens, you need to rest. You've lost a lot of blood. We're going to be back at Hub Island soon," Kara said, slowly setting the agitated Martin back on the floor. She walked away, disappearing to wherever she was before._

 _However, Martin was a stubborn person. Despite his head throbbing and his body aching, he slowly stood up - wobbly at first, but he managed to steady himself. Using the wall to support himself, he walked over to the small control area that Kara was in. The ship appeared to be on autopilot, as Kara was simply playing with Finn as they flew back to the Island._

" _Can I see my son?" he asked, leaning against the wall._

" _Mr. Mertens, you are not physically capable to do that," Kara said as she saw just how much Martin was clinging to the wall to simply stay standing._

" _Well I'm standing, aren't I-!"_

 _Martin was cut off by the ship jolting to a stop on the tough grassy ground. He suddenly fell forward, but luckily managed to cushion his damaged head with his arms. "We're here," Kara said nonchalantly._

 _Without warning, Kara grabbed Martin by the waist, throwing him over her shoulder as she held Finn securely with her other arm. "Hey, is this necessary?!" Martin moaned, but Kara didn't respond._

" _Seeker X-J-7-7 has returned," the ship announced as Kara departed. Soon after, the ship flew itself away to the docking area._

 _Martin watched the ground as Kara carried him away, sighing. All he needed to do was get to Minerva and explain this misunderstanding that was_ actually _a misunderstanding this time. Then they could just go on with life and just raise their child…_

" _Excellent work, Kara. I knew I could count on you."_

 _Martin peered around Kara's arm to see a tan woman with a wheelchair. She wasn't a Helper - she wasn't wearing a white hat or a lab coat. No, this lady definitely wasn't a Helper, but Martin sure knew who she was. She was Dr. Gross, instructor of Seekers and experimental scientist._

 _He immediately grew irritated._

 _Kara set Martin down in the wheelchair. Carefully, Kara also placed baby Finn into Martin's arms, which immediately calmed the older man down._

" _I'll alert Dr. Minerva of their arrival immediately," Dr. Gross stated with a smile. "Thank you so much, Kara. You've done great work." With that, the Seeker smiled and nodded, walking away from the hospital._

 _Martin looked down at Finn as Dr. Gross wheeled them inside the hospital. The baby looked content with his new surroundings. It was familiar and tranquil. "I'm so sorry, buddy," Martin whispered, gingerly holding his child close to his chest. "I'm so glad you're okay."_

" _You know, I tried to warn Minerva about you," Dr. Gross interjected self-righteously as they entered the medical facility. Martin glared at her. "The minute I heard she didn't send you to re-ed, I grew suspicious. And now look what's happened: you fooled her long enough to have a child that you took with you when you damaged the Guardian and left the Island. I was right all along." She nodded to the clerk at the front desk, who let them in once he saw who they were._

" _Look, I wasn't trying to leave. I was trying to keep me and my son safe by circling around the Island. It just started stormin' and we got into the Guardian's range. I did what I had to do to protect Finn," Martin said defensively. He looked ahead without saying another word._

 _Dr. Gross wheeled Martin into Minerva's care unit. She scoffed. "Whatever the case, you can't charm your way out of re-ed this time," she stated, letting go the wheelchair's handles. Then, while Martin wasn't paying attention, she swiped Finn out of his arms._

" _Hey!" Martin shouted, trying to reach for his son, but Dr. Gross was already walking away. Other Helpers began to crowd Martin's vision._

" _I'm getting him a specialist to see if he has any injuries. You'll get to see him after you've completed re-education. Ta-ta!" Martin wanted to push past all the Helpers and steal back his son, especially when he heard him crying, but he knew he couldn't._

 _His heart dropped, but he stayed determined nonetheless. He just had to wait for Minnie._

 _The Helpers had put Martin in a hospital gown and thrown him on a bed. It felt familiar. Was this the same one he was in when he first met Minerva? Small world. Or small island, rather._

 _A female Helper with curly black hair started to clean Martin's wounds, starting with the cut on his head. Another Helper started to check Martin's vitals - something that felt strangely familiar, despite him not having recent memory of anything of the like. He simply stayed silent as the healthcare professionals poked and prodded him. He just needed to wait for Minnie._

" _Vitals seem relatively normal, besides a slight drop in body temperature. What're the severity of his wounds, Dr. Slik?" asked the Helper who held a stethoscope to Martin's chest._

" _This gash on his head is pretty deep. His whole body seems to be badly bruised. Probably has a concussion given his medical history and current condition," Dr. Slik replied. She started to wrap bandages around Martin's head._

" _I see," the other Helper said. He held up his hand a few feet away from Martin's face, putting up his index and middle fingers. "Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?"_

" _Two?" Martin replied quizzically with a raised eyebrow._

 _The Helper nodded. He grabbed a clipboard, reading over the contents attached to it. "Well, Dr. Campbell can decide the proper treatment for this patient. Are you done wrapping the open wounds?"_

" _Yes, Dr. Vivant," Dr. Slik replied. She smiled at Martin in a way that almost seemed forced. "Get well soon, sir! Enjoy re-education!" She then walked out with Dr. Vivant, leaving Martin alone in the care unit._

 _It seemed like hours before someone else came. Sure, people passed outside the opening to the care unit, but no one ever entered. Martin had nearly fallen asleep by the time he heard footsteps walk into the room._

 _Slowly, he turned his damaged head. In the opening to the care unit stood a woman, his lovely wife, though she looked distraught and tired. She didn't even have on her Helper's uniform or anything, just simply one of Martin's old sweatshirts and some jeans._

" _Minnie?" Martin asked as the woman made her way over to his hospital bed, pulling up a chair. She didn't say anything. She simply looked at the floor, tears obviously welling in her eyes._

 _Martin wanted to reach out. He wanted to wipe her tears away and comfort her, but he ultimately just stayed put, staring up at the ceiling. "So, uh… have you checked up on Finn?" he asked awkwardly, trying to break the tension._

" _Yes," Minerva answered quietly, her voice hardly even a whisper._

" _...Is he okay?"_

" _He's in better condition than you. Just a little cold, but he's fine."_

 _Before Martin could even say anything else, Minerva spoke again, causing Martin to turn his head towards her. "Why?" she asked, wiping the tears off her face. Her voice was still very soft. "Why did you leave? Why did you take Finn?"_

 _Her head rose, and that's when Martin fully realized the extent that his actions had upset her. Her eyes were very red, tiredly drooping and still brimming with tears. Her face was stained with tears. She even seemed to shake a little._

 _It made his heart hurt more than anything. He caused this._

" _It's a long story, but I swear, it's not what you think," he said in a quiet voice, trying not to escalate things even further. Minerva didn't respond, so he simply continued. "These Hiders broke into our house while Finn and I were waiting for you to get home. Two of 'em were people I conned, while the others were just back up, I guess."_

 _Minerva simply stared at Martin, her head slightly tilted. "Is that why our windows were broken?" she asked._

" _Yeah…" Martin sighed, shaking his head. "I just didn't know what those guys were gonna do. They looked like they were planning on beating me or somethin', but I had Finn, so for both our sakes I jumped out the window and ran. I got the raft and went down to Basket Beach. I was planning on just circling around the island with Finn so those goons couldn't get to us. I was about to send you a text and everything, but then it just started storming like crazy. The waves pushed the raft out into the Guardian's range, and… Well, you know how that thing works. I was afraid he was gonna hurt Finn, so I left him on the raft and jumped on the Guardian. I managed to punch that thing in the eye, used that little face lazer gadget, and the eye exploded. I just remember crashing into the water, and next thing I know I'm a Seeker ship._

" _I've never been a Hider, Min, and I would_ never _hurt our son."_

 _He looked at her with a rather light somber expression. Nothing was exaggerated or insincere. This wasn't some sick con, as much as Dr. Gross thought otherwise. He just hoped that Minerva would realize that as well._

 _Minerva stared at the wall, processing the story she had just been told. The events did line up with what had happened a few nights before, and, no offense to Martin, but he couldn't come up with that elaborate of an excuse in such little time. That wasn't how he conned, and he hadn't conned in years._

 _It was true. It had to be._

 _Tears began to fall down Minerva's face involuntarily, but they were tears of a different kind. She was smiling. "Oh, Martin," she said, leaning down to hug her injured husband. He gratefully hugged back. "I'm so glad you're safe."_

"Jake, are you crying?" Bonnie asked curiously, staring at the stretching dog.

"No! This room's just dusty or somethin'," Jake said defensively, not-so-subtly wiping the immensely noticeable tears from his eyes. "Prismo, can you fast forward?" he suddenly asked, crossing his arms in defiance.

"I can, if that's cool with everyone else," Prismo responded, his shadow-esque hand over the remote. He looked at the remaining two guests for approval. Bonnie politely said yes, while Finn just simply shrugged and said, "Whatevs, man." His focused gaze never left the TV wall.

Prismo fast forwarded the video, only it stopping when it appeared Martin, Minerva, and baby Finn had all made it back to their cozy little house. Everyone's eyes were glued to the wall as the video continued at its normal speed.

 _Martin opened the door to their house, seeing the broken glass of the windows and the vase swept into a corner. Besides that, things appeared to be at least somewhat tidy, like Minerva wanted to clean, but couldn't find the motivation. Martin frowned._

 _He let Minerva in the house before following and closing the door. "I'm going to put Finn to bed. He's had a rough time. I'll be back in a second," Minerva said, disappearing into the halls._

" _Okay!" Martin responded, slowly sitting down on his couch. He was so glad to be home, but it just felt… different. Everything did, even this damn couch._

 _Moments later, Minerva returned to the living room. Wordlessly, she sat down next to Martin on the couch, taking his hand in hers. "Will your past continue to come back like this?" she asked quietly, looking at him with concern. "We can't risk something else like this, Martin."_

 _Martin slowly nodded. "I don't know. Those two were the only ones who held a grudge even after re-ed, but… I dunno. But hey, at least now we can prepare," Martin said with a shrug._

" _With what, stronger glass?" Minerva asked with an eyebrow raised. Her eyes travelled to the pile of swept up glass that she hadn't bothered to move in days._

 _Martin eyes had followed hers. "I mean, I guess?" he answered, dragging out the last word in uncertainty. Though, with tougher glass, he wouldn't have been able to escape so quickly. Those Hiders might've caught him somewhere in his house. After all, that tiger was_ pretty _fast._

 _In spite of the situation, Minerva gave a small chuckle, shaking her head. "Trouble just follows you everywhere, doesn't it?" she teased._

" _What can I say? No one can resist the patent-pending Merten's Charm," Martin responded, his eyes closed. He held his free arm behind his head as her crossed one leg over the other. Slowly, he opened his eyes, looking at his wife in his peripheral vision._ "Wink," _he said as he did the action._

 _Minerva slowly shook her head as she chuckled. "We'll get through this, even if I have to drag you along," she joked, standing up from the couch._

" _No need. I'll be there every step of the way," Martin assured, holding a serious smile on his face now._

 ** _|FAST FORWARD|_**

 _Martin was whistling to himself as he put on a cooking glove. Friday nights were always the best nights; it meant he got to make hot wings! He absent-mindedly opened the stove, grabbing a pan of breaded chicken and putting it on the counter._

 _Ah, that greasy smell! Martin couldn't help but smile. Life was good. Life was normal._

 _He reached over to grab the wing sauce with his opposite hand, only to feel a distracting tug at his pant leg. He looked down to see his five-year-old son gazing up at him with tears in his eyes. Finn held tightly onto the fabric of Martin's pants._

" _Hey, hey! Buddy, what's wrong?" Martin asked, crouching down so he was eye-level with the young child._

" _My teeff," the child responded, pointing to a gap in his teeth where his front two incisors would be._

 _Martin chuckled slightly at the lack of articulation in Finn's wording. If two missing teeth were the biggest problem in the world, parenting a school-aged kid would surely be a breeze! "Well, those grow back! Just gotta be patient, little man!" he reassured, giving his son a bright smile as he ruffled his hair._

 _However, this only seemed to upset Finn greatly. He shoved his father's arm off him, loudly shouting, "No!" Tears began to stream down his face._

 _Martin's face faltered immediately, his heart sinking within his chest. Okay, okay, so maybe this would be more like an extremely windy day… He cringed as he looked at his son, who was on the brink of a breakdown or temper-tantrum of sorts._

 _Taking the oven mitt off his hand, Martin stood up fully. Finn's eyes followed him upwards. "Hey, I'll tell you what? Let's go to our Barber Shop for a minute, eh? That sound okay?" Martin spoke tenderly, hands at his waist._

 _Silently, Finn nodded._

Well, we're making progress, _Martin thought._

 _The father grabbed his son from the ground, delicately placing him in one of the red dining chairs. He untied the apron from around his waist, shaking it off before loosely tying it around his son, just as he would during a work shift._

" _Ah, Mr. Finn! So nice to see you today! What'll it be?" he said, putting on his 'work voice' and an award-winning smile. He knelt down so that he could easily reach Finn's hair._

 _In spite of all this, however, Finn just simply looked down at his dangling feet. "Just a trim…" he trailed of dejectedly._

 _Martin pursed his lips, slowly nodding his head. He smacked loudly. "Just a trim, gotcha… Say, what's got you down, pal? That drag in your tone could bring down a boat!" he stated, gently placing his hand on his son's shoulder._

 _Finn sighed, visibly clenching the side of his seat. "Sorry, Mr. Mertens… I'fe had a bad day," he replied rather maturely, straightening his head as if his father was actually about to cut his hair._

" _If you need to spit something out, I'm all ears, Mr. Finn! It's just you, me, and these here scissors," Martin energetically promised. He held up his hand, forming two fingers into fake scissors. He began to pretend that he was literally cutting Finn's hair._

" _T'ese kids were really mean to me today at school," he stared. "I had to read to t'uh class, and I couldn' say some words, 'cause I don' got my two top teeff!" He once more pointed to the absent teeth inside his mouth. "T'ey kept laughing and teasing me… It didn't make me feel good, Dadda." Finn hugged himself anxiously, solemnly looking down at the floor once more._

 _Martin frowned, setting both his arms at his sides. So this is what he was dealing with, some self-entitled toddlers? He thought for a small moment. "Well, that just means your adult teeth are comin' in! Nothing to be worried about, just ask your mom. But it's not your fault your front teeth decided to fall out at the same time. They just wanted to go out together, I guess. But, the thing is, that's normal. Teeth do that. Nothing's wrong with it. And if those punks disagree, they can beat it!" Martin stated, untying the stained apron from around Finn's neck._

 _Finn quickly turned around in the chair, giving his father distressed eyes. "But what if t'ey don' go away?" he whispered intensely, gripping the chair so tightly that his knuckles were almost paper white._

" _You can trust that your ol' Pop will make 'em, okay?" Martin smiled, pointing confidently to himself. "That's a promise, Finn."_

 _Finn smiled back, reaching over the back of the dining chair to hug his dad. "T'ank you, Dadda."_

" _You're welcome, kiddo. That'll be $11.50."_

 **|X|**

Finn watched the video with intense concentration, intently focusing on the fabrication of what his life could've been. A tear involuntarily slid down his cheek. Martin wasn't in any sort of prison, nor was he a heartless jerk; his mother was still alive, and she was _beautiful_ ; and he himself had absolutely no cares in the world.

They were all just so happy. It was a good life, a life that he could've had, a life that _Martin_ could've had. Could he really fault his dad for not making this wish a reality in their timeline? Maybe not entirely, but Martin certainly didn't come back for him in any capacity…

Would he even want this life over his own?

He hardly noticed that Prismo had stopped the video. He just stared blankly at the wall, trying mull over what he'd just seen: an alternate universe, a universe that could've been his with the change of one detail…

"Hey," said a voice that caught Finn off-guard. He quickly turned around, seeing that the wish master Prismo was now on the wall to his right. "I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't have showed you that."

"I'm sorry, too, Finn," said Bonnie, who was sitting to the right of Finn. Her eyes were full of guilt as she looked down at the yellow floor. "I never should've put you through this," she said, hugging herself.

Finn stared at his two pink friends; both of their expressions were laced with regret. Because of him. Immediately, he went into a spiel, "No, no. It's fine, really. I think I needed this." He looked at the T.V. wall, which was now blank and yellow, just like every other surface in this room. He then turned back to Prismo and Bonnie. "That might not be my life, and I might never meet my mom, but it's nice to know I wasn't abandoned. Not on purpose, at least…"

"Do you feel different at all? About Martin?" Bonnie asked, not being able to help herself when she saw he far-off gaze in her hero's eyes.

Finn simply shrugged. "Not really. He's still a jerk, but I guess now I know why."

" _Pssssssssshhh_!" Jake started, standing up as he held out the word. All the others in the room all turned their heads towards him, who had been strangely quiet these past few minutes. He gave a small tut. "Y'all shouldn't even bother apologizing! Yeah, Finn might not have that family, but he's got this family! And we all love him!" He stretched his arms, holding Finn in a tight embrace. "Besides, that place looks _boring_ ," Jake complained, though Finn suspected it was his way of convincing himself that Finn preferred Ooo over Hub Island.

Finn couldn't help but form a small smile. He turned around as best he could with Jake's arms wrapped around him, facing the shadow that the far wall. "Thank you Prismo, for everything," Finn said.

Prismo gave a somewhat somber smile. "It's no problem, man."

"Prismo, take us home!" Jake exclaimed.

That thought seemed so strange to Finn, going home. It wouldn't quite be the same.

He did change, after all.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! Hope you all had happy holidays! :) This is the final chapter of Finn and Marty! I hope you all enjoyed!**

 **~Emily Believes xoxo**


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